


Rosaline Enthorned in Brambles

by BriarRosesAndThorns



Category: Abyssal, Exalted (Roleplaying Game), Tabletop RPG - Fandom, solar - Fandom
Genre: Booby trap, Character Death, Curses, Dark Magic, Daybreak Abyssal, Double Exaltation, Family, Grave Robbers, Magic, Magical Accidents, Major Character Injury, Motes, Nightmare Fuel, Nightmares, Not Really Character Death, Solar to Abyssal, Too Many Teeth, Treasure Hunting, Treasure Hunting Gone Wrong, Twilight Solar, essence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 15:06:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17327261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriarRosesAndThorns/pseuds/BriarRosesAndThorns
Summary: From the Exalted 3rd Edition universe [Tabletop], the dual exaltations of my OC from mortal to Solar exalt [chosen of the Sun], to Abyssal exalt [twisted Solar to chosen of Death/the Abyss], with wild magic curses, death magic, tech magic; monsters, hungry ghosts, and wind up birds. A short piece about discovery and self-determination against a dark adventure gone wrong.Spoilers:Graphic interpretation of a grave robbing gone wrong, family betrayal, and the breaking of a body and mind.





	Rosaline Enthorned in Brambles

**Author's Note:**

> Exalted takes place in a world following a violent collapse of a Golden Age, where the god-empowered beings are slowly making a resurgence.
> 
> A (MUCH TOO) Brief Glossary of other words if you need it, O Reader!  
> Essence/Motes - magic or mana force which fuels spells or charms  
> Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse//Moonshadow/Day/Daybreak/Midnight/Dusk - Different Castes or classes of skill sets the pc can choose from but also known as iterations or aspects of the god or being which has Chosen them to become an avatar of their power.  
> Invictus Sol/Sol Invictus/Ignis Divine/Sol/the Unconquered Sun - A sun god who basically Jesus-d his way into driving Creation into being a place for light and life to succeed in against the powers of the Primordial beings who made it for their entertainment and benefit only.  
> Eye and Seven Despairs - Once a chosen of Sol, the powers of the Primordials banished to the abyss, he is now a Deathlord, a conduit of deathly dark, traumatic, nightmarish power. He has the power to create Deathknights, also known as Abyssals, who are the dark alter-egos to the Solar chosen.  
> Dragons - Dragonblooded have powers based in the four elements, and their powers are lineage based as opposed to god chosen. Different elements support different skill sets.  
> Wyld - The constant, ever changing boundaries to the Abyss and to Creation, where fairy folk exist and play in, causing havoc and madness when they come in contact with other beings.  
> Warstrider - Basically mechs. Different types of tanks and mecha battles. Like Gundam.  
> Hearthstone - a gem which is imbued with or otherwise attuned to motes/essence and can be used to regain magic when you run through your resources.  
> Orichalcum - Like gold, but more durable and blessed by Sol.  
> Jade - Jade comes in different colors which give it different powers, attuned with Dragonblooded most of all.  
> Demon/Anathema - Anathema is what Dragonblooded call other exalted (because stuff reasons history, the book does explain it better if you're curious); they see Solars and other exalts as incredibly dangerous and (rightly) as one of the main causes if not the main cause, of the collapse of the former golden age of the world.

**Dawn: On Light of Radiance**

     This time when the light palely grows to full magnificence, hinting what follows. Delicate; the hollowness strength denies.

     By what means would my struggle be anything other than beautiful? For I bring the light, to banish that which you are afraid of, although I am not yet as strong as I am to grow. I sat upon the shore of a darkened sea of stars, for the sun brought hope in the long night.

     Once, I am told, Invictus himself was the coming dawn. Radiance told of victory. Glory. By what means do we rise alone?

**Zenith: On Heat of Divine Right**

     The full bloom of promised day, warm, undeniable. Blinding, blinded by faith. The circle half complete; all will be what will be. I am made for glory; there are no shadows to harm you. They fled before discernment, as is my right and theirs. The day is at its peak; so am I. I carry illumination with me into the night.

     My flesh and will purify as flame; certainty is all that ever might be.

     Invictus at wisdom’s peak; diverting firmament and hells, mortals thriving in his care. It was he who knew best — faith sustained him. So be sustained.

**Twilight: On Inspired Creation**

     Quiet, cool, evening, Sol sends you rest. Light wanes; lingering, offering muses blessed repose. Time for making, designing; dreams coming to fruition.

     How could that which is learned, this craving blessed by the sun, built for beauty and desire be other than perfection? I construct from darkness, from light; I have made you a better way.

     Nothing stands against my repurposed creations. I moved toward darkness, heard the song “Listen, Listen”; the sun made me wise in reflection.

     He took from darkness the potential of Creation, brought his skill — inspiration. Might I do less?

**Night: On Salvation through Silence**

     The sun has set; only the stars or moon remain, and there is much not understood by frightened eyes. When will the sun rise? We must be patient, use our fear against the phantoms. Even here. The cycle is whole.

     I need for nothing, and I am nothing but promise and courage. My role in the night is to walk one step behind the nightmare, until it fears me instead. I am the darkness, and rest.

     I stood against the abyss, and it’s yawning impressed me not so I filled it with the sounds of owl wings and empty rooms until it begged mercy.

     Sol walked in darkness and became more than it; him I do take for my guide.

**Eclipse: On the Circumstance of Truth**

     Then — only and always, one with Creation and beyond, the roaring perfection that drives you to your knees if only to see it once more, breathless. There is nothing more sublime or enveloping.

     There, that moment of accord — even the darkness is part of the brilliance. I bring you mead — let us drink to similarity. I stood on mountain tops, breathed as any other, knew myself blessed.

     Ignis Divine, loving and compassionate, furious and resilient, spoke to all and created a place for each. I too take this mantle, uniting possibility to fact.

 

——

 

     “We’ve found it, Hademar. There’s nothing left between us and the real trove.”

     “Well done, cousin. I suppose your studies have been quite useful after all.” Hademar smiles, takes a drink from the flask I know has some strong alcohol in it. I can smell it from here, or really anywhere in this room. I would have recommended anyone else leave it back at home, but he is the main drive behind this particular expedition.

     “I’m glad,” I say, and turns back to the door, reading the inscriptions that pass across it like sand dunes in a wind.

     Behind us, standing side by side in front of the runes, Hademar’s older brother and sisters are sorting through the books in the library, a little worse for the wear but still strong. While I’ve been looking for this tomb in particular, Ceadda went as far as to find someone who could track the deathspeakers and pass along information about hungry ghosts in the south.

     “How long is it going to to take you to get through the door, do you think?” Erhard comes up beside me, checking the system that seals it. He had hoped for more locking systems he could pull apart and work with his hands than we found so far. But at least twice in the Wyld maze room the wind came to him to whisper the right way through, so I’m certain he knows more than I do. Like our cousins, my brother’s blood is also wakened.

      “Longer if you distract her, Errie. Leave her be. I’m sure she’ll call you over if we need you.”

     “As long as you’re helping her with it, how distracting could I be?” But he says it evenly and moves off to look at one of the scrolls Ceadda is holding up to the light.

     Hademar screws the lid back onto his flask. I’d bet it’s about half full, by now. “I’ll bring over another light.”

     “Thanks,” I say, and pull my notes out again to compare. The translation of this first passage is based off of an obscure ritual text, I think, but I want to be certain. I have to be certain.

     Rambert shouts suddenly, and starts swearing, trying to slam a book closed in his hands. It resists him with an ugly tearing noise, and a pale light shines from the binding. Inga runs to her husband and clouts it out of his hands, stomping on the cover to close it as soon as it hits the ground. He falls to his knees coughing and coughing.

     Ceadda has dropped what she’s doing and pulled a remedy from her pocket, looking to her spells to be sure that we haven’t triggered anything larger than we anticipated. But they still glow a gentle warning, nothing serious, and so she joins the crush.

     I’d go to look in on him too, but Hademar catches my shoulder when I turn away. “No. You stay here. You have nothing useful that they don’t. The best thing for you to do right now is to get us in, and then we can leave this fucking tomb, and all the creepy crawlies the dead bitch left behind.”

     “Language, Mar,” Inga says from habit, but she’s barely paying attention. Ceadda’s murmuring voice rises softly in a singsong, and then Rambert takes a deep breath and quiet falls again.

     “What happened?” he asks in a moment. I strain my ears, flicking pages so Hademar won’t come back and be sure that I’m working on the door, but I’d be afraid of making a mistake in translation if I didn’t make sure Rambert was okay first.

     Inga snorts, now that the danger has passed. “Idiot. I keep telling you not to read books without reading the covers first.”

     “It opened itself,” he protests, but it’s a weak one. At least he’s feeling strong enough to argue.

     “I’m certain it did,” Ceadda soothes. “Some of the ones I’ve heard about will take your memories from you and more. You’re lucky all it did was try to take the words out of your lungs when you started swearing.”

     “How do you know that’s what it did?” Hademar asks. “It could have done any number of things.”

     “I recognize the title of the grammaire. It’s discussed in at least three other texts I was researching on binding charms. It drinks the power behind the words to reinforce the spell to keeping the knowledge inside preserved. Don’t read the name whatever you do, or it’ll pull you in again, Rambert.” He must be looking even when he shouldn’t, which means that he’s fine.

     Very well, and I look back to the door.

     “I almost have it. This is the last one, before we get to the inner sanctum. It says something.... I don’t know what this word is. Let me take one more moment to be certain that I have it right. I would hate for it to go wrong because I went too fast.”

     “Too fast, she says,” Volker grumbles. “We’ve been here for two days on that stupid door. Couldn’t you just move past it like you normally do, Erhard?”

     “No,” I say before he can. “If he jumped past he might set off something in the door or on the other side. We don’t actually know what’s behind this. I just have a good guess and several texts that describe what I might expect. “

     “They had better be right about the treasure. If we came all this way just to find a looted tomb and a dead curse, I’m going to be very unhappy.”

     “We KNOW!” Inga snaps finally. “Quit your moaning, Mar. The more you complain the less she gets done. You’re particularly irritating me.”

      “You said you trusted me to do this right,” I say when he swings around to face her. “Do you have a piece of waxed charcoal, Errie?”

     Erhard groans. “Another one? Seriously, next time I’m just bringing a hive and a pit with me so I can manufacture it while you work. Fine, I’ll be right there.”

     I spread the last few completely blank pages on the ground in front of the door, and kneel carefully at the center; For all of the other doors there have been riddles, trick puzzles, a spell primed to send the unwary somewhere unknown in the labyrinth if not carefully dismantled. But this one seems almost too welcoming. Friendly and inviting. The words in the stone are deeper and the lifts where they form one to the next are gentle and strangely sharp.

     Erhard brings me the charcoal, and I start to sketch the pieces into separate places so that I can study the elements and not the whole.

     First the base, gently dust away the outer coverings; then, into the wildness of curiosity which binds to knowledge and forms substance.

_Once, the dragons turned and twisted; twist now in the wreckage of their displeasure. Burn in the light of the sun what is less than certain. Become infallible; only then, enter in._

     The last lock clicks into place; the doors slide wide. Theobald is first through the door, and he is careful to watch the fault lines, make certain the structure still holds. But all is still in preparation for us, it seems. All is still well. Then Rambert is through; he moves more quickly than Theobald, more quickly that I think safe, but before I can say a word aloud Inga has followed and yanks him backwards behind her.

     “You don’t learn, idiot mine,” she says, which is when we feel the first tremble.

     “Who touched what? Did you step on anything?”

     “Everyone be still!” Ceadda is commanding when she wants to be, and she takes measure of the stairs before us, Inga’s foot set upon the first. “You will stay as you are until I finish, or bear the consequence. Now, hold.” She casts, delicate and fibrous threads that settle through the air like dust motes. I hold my breath as long as I can, let it out as slowly and quietly as possible, and again; after five times of this tense air she nods.

     “It will sleep for now. Do not touch anything that the motes have not rested themselves on; it will be dangerous. It could set off whatever wards I’ve lulled.”

     And so we proceed, into the final cavern we’ve hoped for, the treasure room. There first is a frozen menagerie of form and thunder bound into ice, the rapid beating of a heart almost. They seem like stalagmites, but I see from Theobald’s face that they will be something for Ceadda and I to consider instead. He hasn’t the faintest idea of what they are.

     We see the first of the open casks of treasure, the real treasure. Not the cursed gold and gemstones, but here, first of all in the wall, is resting a flock of birds, orichalcum at the least, laced with something that glitters and shimmers silvery and fluid. Ceadda’s smile is pure delight.

     “They are songbirds - infused with the wyld, I believe. Look!”

     But instead of at the birds, I notice the light in the room changes and the crystals pulse more quickly. Looking at them, I think of fangs dripping with fresh blood, and the smooth cool afternoon of dipping your toes in a lazy stream. My mind reels with the flood of images and I feel that somehow, I am being mocked. But still, then, there is more.

     Mechanical creations, and even fully designed and still complete warstriders, any number of things which glow and hum and seem to come to life when we pass. And in the center of the room, there is a wonder which forces us all to awe.

     There, great and crackling with contained raw force, an essence pillar; a leyline of power, bright and ragged. It swirls on itself in invisible confines, lighting the chamber.

     I see it vibrate, the edges just a little, and another stifled rumble rises from the stairs we came in by. A plume of nearly pink erupts from the bottom of the pillar, and the room shivers and groans.

     “We have to get out,” I say, almost as Hademar shouts. He barely glances at me, before he speaks; there is only contempt. How like him.

     “Ceadda, find out what it is that Ardith missed and cause it to make less noise than it currently is. Ardith, see if you can manage to work out if this can be tapped into. Everyone else, with me. Carry all you can with you. We’ll have to come back for the smaller items, though their worth will be less by necessity. Choose wisely.”

     And despite my warning, they listen to him. Except for Ceadda, who looks at the exposed leyline and back to the ripple, and hesitates. But Hademar is gone, opening up the cockpit of the nearest warstrider. And the floor rumbles, though we don’t know from where. So she sets back to the doors, the stairs, and sets about stabilizing what she might; I look to the essence rising above and know almost instantly that there is nothing any one of us might do. It is destabilizing.

     But it’s a controlled catastrophic failure. Like it was planned. Like all of these traps and tricks and thoughts.... wait. Every other piece of this entire tomb survived the ages intact and perfectly in tune with the original intent. Every other instance has had a... a catch, something that I can find to move around the direct problem and unlock the next layer. Everything.

     The light changes again, this time gold in the center and flaring red at the edges; there is a cracking sound, and behind me I hear a scream, an awful driving sound that beats at my ears and then is abruptly cut off. And then, there is a rasping laughter.

     I turn.

     Ceadda is bleeding in a pool on the ground, and I cannot think to stop the explosive power that will end us all. There has to be something. Where would I keep such a thing? It must be here. It is too well planned to be otherwise.

     Hademar screams in rage, and there is a grinding whir as he forces the strider out from the wall, and Inga shouts, wind rising up around her as she throws a fragment of broken crystal into a beast, a beast with a great scaled tail, hairs as large around as my wrist jutting here and there. It laughs, snatches the projectile from the air with a paw with fingers like ours, claws like a lizards, talons as a bird, twisting and winding through each other in such a way that I do not know whether or not there might be anything at all even there at the palm.

     But even though there is a maelstrom about me, I see the room in stillness. What knowledge might I seek, if I were not so hurried?

     There is a dais at the far end of the room, and a dark doorway behind the center of it, tucked between the treasure slots. A seat. The beast could reach inside and take me out, but at the very least, there might be something there that might help.

    I pass by the pillar, step over a hearthstone that writhes and screams in dark and twisted faces and billows darkness.

     It drives me cold. But the door, the small door, is more of an arch into a small cell, with pools of liquid metal shifting and swirling, some I know, orichalcum, star metal even, and jades, but some in colors that should not exist. Some of them seem almost unworldly.

     Something runs down the side of my face, and there is a bloom of pain that follows. Blood spills onto the floor. I cannot tell whether it is mine, for sure, because when I turn to see what had thrown it, the room is sprayed with blood and entrails and parts of Rambert are all about the room. Theobald is in two pieces, a chunk torn from his torso being still chewed by multiple layers of teeth moving separately in a mouth which has mouths smaller and smaller still inside of it gnashing and crunching bones and viscera. I hope for his sake Theobald is too far gone to know what is happening.

     Hademar in his strider is beating and beating at the beasts side, but from the broken font of the wyld crystal, as that is what it must be, I see another figure emerging, with long limbs and a strikingly thin neck that spills and spills and spills out like a snake before shoulders of bone and sinew only begin to form themselves. Hademar will not stand a chance; he will know that soon.

     But.

     If this is to leave any of us to speak of the tale afterwards, there must be a riddle here. The room, the small room is the trick. Erhard has run for the door; Volker has dropped to his knees beside Ceadda, and if she still lives, she might be pulled from the grave, but I am not hopeful. There is a good deal of blood around her still.

     Back in the room. There are the usual signs of the sun, but here I see also promises of power and continuity. And an image of a woman seated on the dais right behind me. Hidden, only connected by her gaze, in the bottom I see her weaving the powers with the gods looking on. And there - there it is, a small spark of the power she has created drawn away. The creature stares straight out. When I follow its gaze, I see only the pool of white jade.

     Another roar shatters a piece of the ceiling down and I think to myself that there should be a scream, but perhaps the blood is my own, and my ears have simply ruptured to spare me. There is a distant ringing, words that seem to be forming out of the silence of the swirling metals and stone.

     There, in the bowl. This is the only place the gazes in the room could lead to, all the other eyes are closed or looking downcast and away, nowhere else.

     There are no tools here that might let me dig and I have no way of knowing how deep it is, but the binding on the essence pillar is degrading.

     I see Erhard, who has seen me, and his lips move in what must be a shout. Hurry up, he says, what are you doing? His face is soaked with tears and sweat, splattered with what looks to be grayish porridge.

     I turn to the bowl, and plunge my hand into the hot jade.

     It does not burn, but I feel something binding to me, a bright light surrounding me. A calmness. When I pull my hand forth, there is a bauble with a charm written on it; it pulses with the same essence as the leyline, but there- there is a power that rushes through me and I understand it.

     The sound returns to me, and I drop to a knee. There is carnage all around me. Rambert’s hand is sinking into the back leg which still tangles claws around the last grasp to keep him caged and immobile. The beast wails in his voice, “Help me, help me, help me, Please, for the love of the dragons, help me, it is too much, too much,” and cackles with a mouth within all the time.

     Hademar has turned in his strider, which still pummels the beast, but it is as though he suddenly does not care.

     “What have you done?” He howls. “You.... Filth! Inga, the demon rises.”

     I realize that he is looking to me.

     And that’s when Erhard seizes up near the door out of this madness, and his eyes explode into mucus and blood. His fingers shrivel and his arm drops into his ribs on his right side, my brother, my poor innocent brother who only joined us because I told him that it might be fun. The wind around him rises, and rises, eroding the flesh from his body as he struggles, and then Errie’s ribs collapse inward in a spray of splinters.

     I can do nothing, from here, this quickly. I do not understand what has happened. What-

     the rest of Ceadda’s spell disintegrates as quickly as ash in a heavy gale. A pale ghost rises from the steps, pulling stone together to form another like itself. It steps inside, and the form that it has taken is almost the mirror to Erhard’s twisted body.

     It is another hungry ghost, demonic and mad enough that instead of running at Volker, who is nearest, it takes a blow from the Wyld beast and the stone creature throws itself against the nightmare.

     Good, this is as it should be, I think and do not recognize the assurance. I know for certain that this is one of the functions of the guardians, but not how they were placed or how many.

     Hademar drops to the ground and runs at me. “We’re leaving,” he says, and there is a golden light gleaming from the fluids on his face and in his eyes that must be coming from behind me. Perhaps I did trigger something else instead of saving us.

     And he takes me by the collar, drags me behind him. Volker is through the door, and as soon as Hademar and I are past the beast Inga begins a defensive retreat. The stone ghost bellows something -

    <Lo, I have arisen to do battle and to take what is rightfully the mistress’s.>

     And the beast creaks and blows as a ship in a sail births another; The long necked apparition steps shakily towards us on four legs like stilts, with barbs at the base.

     <She is no mistress of mine> the two of the wyld speak as one and the room begins to bleed into a maze filled of human teeth that grow and shrink and fragment with rot.

     Inga is beside me, and we are at the door, but when I try to step through as well, she pushes me back.

     “Not you.” Her face is stormy. “You stay here.”

     “What- what do you mean? This isn’t funny, Inga. Volker, help me!” But he and Hademar have matching faces of righteous hatred, and I have only seen Volker like this once before, when he spoke of

     the Anathema.

    “I’m no demon!” I scream, and a dark gutteral snarl from whatever has entered Erhard frightens me from behind, but he is not reaching for me, he is nearly protectively in front and he plunges his fist past even Inga who can’t move nearly fast enough, and it is deep in Hademar’s chest. He is surprised as he dies, and the light I see in his eyes is the mark of the unclean, burned into my face with the light of the Sun coming forth from it.

     Inga backhands Erhard so hard, with the force of the wind behind her hand, that his skull crushes, and in a follow through drives her knee into my chest and me to the ground.

     “You will not follow us, demon. You may have claimed this place now, but it will be your grave again. We will seal it. None will ever enter it again to satiate your appetite.” And she drives a piece of broken wyld into my breastbone, dragging entirely down my body.

     Pain, and pain and disbelief. The light shines from the wound, but I cannot breath.

     She draws it back and plunges it down into my left leg. I cannot move, pinned like a beetle.

     Volker slams Errie’s corpse back from the door with an explosive kick. The wyld beast snatches it out of the air with its tail, and slams it into the ground. It bares its teeth.

     And Inga and Volker turn away.

     “Mercy,” I manage to shudder out through teeth that are chattering and convulsing. I cannot keep my eyes open, there is acid, acid driving through my guts relentless, and I am too broken to even throw up.

     Volker looks back at me as he and Inga seal the door.

     “There is no mercy for Anathema,” he says, and the door is shut.

     The Wyld beast cries out with Erhard’s voice as it closes in, teeth grinding and grinding. “Help me,” it says. “I’ll help you. I’ll help you.”

 

**Moonshadow: On the Darkness of Discord**

     How near, but far a pale reflection might traverse, if only you turn a blind eye. That conviction is nothing but empty hope; I will show you what this shade truly is.

     We were but deceived; the only shame is in continuing such a pretense, and I have no heart for lies. Learn me; my truth is just as much as yours.

     There - the air stills and grows cold. I see nothing but darkness - who are you to tell me of the light?

     His hatred and intolerance drive us away; who was he before he turned traitor? And where is that truth he buries? Bring back that which was. Speak not of a golden age. We shiver in the ruins.

 

     The room spins... grows dim. Breathing, breathing is. It is difficult. I cannot. The beast laughs and weeps and now, now that it is no longer under threat it slows in devouring. It has started on my fingers now, and the rows of teeth work their way up my arm and I lose more sensation and I drift in and out, out and out and it has more mercy than my family, and tears me and I am gone.

    _“Hello, Ardith.”_

_He stands beside the beast devouring my arm, torn from my body and rapidly vanishing into the maw. Its claws rake against the flesh that was mine, the shoulder that is glowing paler and paler gold, but time has_ slowed, _and slowed again, and all is but the light fading in my own eyes._

    _I wince, as it drives its claws into my inner thigh, licks at the blood pooling from me. It has bitten along what remains of my shoulder, a line of perforations that bleed acid outward along the skin._

_He is a boy, younger than I. His back is to me, as I look at myself._

_“Are you a demon?” I ask, strangely unashamed of the lack of fury which I had felt a moment before._

_“No.” He looks back at me. “Not a demon. I am above them. Is this the end you want, Ardith? They left you.” His eyes are dark, in shadow._

_“They didn’t leave me, they killed me,” and there, there is the burning anger again. “Like they never knew me. I am no demon!” The anger pulls me back towards my body, the pain matching the pain._

_“You’re not.” He is steady. “They betrayed you. I can help you.”_

_“Help me how?”_

_“You have a choice to make. You can die, and let their crimes go unpunished. Or I can remake you, in the way that serves my needs as well. We can help one another. I will give you all the tools to exact your vengeance. You will become my tool, to exact my own.”_

_“That is all you ask? Why would you offer me this?”_

_“You will be remade as I choose, to do your own will after mine. You will be my own, and there is no return to the light.”_

_“What vengeance would you have?”_

_He smiles, and there, the shadow of my own pain. Understanding. “Do we have an accord, then?”_

_If they will name me demon, at least he offers me a choice. And this- this wreckage that is my murder will be made right._

_“Tell me your name?” I ask, knowing that it will change nothing._

_“Eye and Seven Despairs,” he says._

_“Give me my vengeance. I will be yours,” I say, and he smiles._

 

**Day: On the Presence of Hate**

     There it burns and desiccates, standing in disguised vitriol against itself. Do you not see the uncaring eye? Then where is he now?

     I fill shoes no one else can. I will make these hard decisions, as they were made. Against me, I add. Do not cry to me when you realize your weakness; I have no mercy left to me.

     You see me in the faces you hold dearest, and the ones you drive away. I am in all places. And are you yet abandoned?

     He stood in defiant jealousy at the power of something greater, and pretended to be something he was not. What trust does he deserve?

 

_“You must forsake all that came before. You will take a new name. Not just your body, but your very being are mine.” He is close to me._

_On an instinct, I kneel. “Take it,” I say. “Take everything. I want none of it. Nothing at all. If you want, I will tell you everything of my family. My family that was. I will tell you everything I know of their research, everything I know of their studies. They have turned on me. Let them. Take it for their undoing.”_

_His hand is gentle, brushing a tear that I did not know I felt away from my cheek._

_“And what of the one who gave you that Second Breath? The one who drew their wrath down upon you by his gift?”_

_“You mean -” I run through the research I have studied, the words of the ages of the anathema and their tombs. “The Unconquered Sun.”_

    _“They call him so.”_

_“It was no gift he gave me. And he did not ask for my permission either. I would have nothing to do with him.”_

_“Then I will accept what you give me freely.” And he takes me by the neck and pushes me down into the body that was mine._

_The beast above me howls and shudders at the taste suddenly, and I watch him take my arm, pull the spar from my leg and plunge it deep into the eye of the Wyld, again and again, over and over; it tries to pull back but the sudden darkness in the room narrows in on it, smaller and smaller and more confined. It is torn apart, limb from limb as it ripped me and the pieces flutter into nothing at all. When it is dead, he passes through me, emerging as a dark god, dead and fearful, awful in every way. I relish it. He speaks truly, and I know that there will be pain. But I care not. This is as I have chosen. He has not betrayed me in any way._

_I find myself..._

_Grateful._

 

**Daybreak: On the Persistence of Progress**

     I take what is formed and reuse it - myself - as well; but I have never lied about its origin. Why then do you?

     I create havoc, you say; but do you not as well, with these toys you make that have no future understood for them? I foretell these because I know death as well, and see cancer from medicine. And if I choose the former at least I know it when I am thanked.

     I wound up my heart to tide me through the ages, and it has yet to fail. Why has yours fallen into disarray?

     He made from darkness suffering; I remake the light to silence.

 

    _He reaches into the depths of my soul, drags out the golden thing that has spent so much light through my blood in his hand and smiles. His arms and arms and arms which make the_ wyld _beast look inept drive into the dwindling sunlight._

_“I shall resculpt you; you have no use for this hesitation, so I will carve it from you like so much excess fat. You won’t need that pitchiness either; perhaps I shall crush that into a new voice for you. I would have your knowledge seduce them as well as your form; I will take that love from you and remake it into a weapon. It will plague you no more. They will be as dirt before you and your resolve will be the stronger. Perhaps I will infuse that force of will into your breaths as well._

_He twists something and Oh-_

_The face of my mother turns monstrous and she feeds through the walls to devour the taste of autumn from my mind._

_It hurts, it hurts to have this break, the flood of my emotions from my entire life pulsing through my mind all at once in a break like a mountain fall. I would scream but there is nothing to speak to, to beg, and I will not cry mercy._

_I asked for this. I did. I wanted this._

_He flays the skin, my skin, and peels out, dip by dip, the words of my mentors. He cuts them to the root, so they will not grow back, and that is madness._

_“Please-” I want, but I don’t know what I would ask and it doesn’t matter anyway._

_It is not my skin but it is. He reaches deeper, drawing out fiber by fiber of my veins, all of them. All of them. The dragon’s blood, that which would have seen me become one of the Air, pours from me and it matters not. It matters not that at this sublime exquisite pain I do break down, as it is not only my blood that is breaking but my sense of fearfulness and I think that soul-splitting terror hurts more as it is cut away from me. He seams himself to me instead, his power and the night binding to me where the golden light pumps out, thrusting its way through, and_ blazening _even my muscles and the sutures of my mind and I am nothing but insignificant before the abyss oh what horror and what truth it holds. It has always been there. It will always be there. The most the light does is to illuminate that it is present still and unceasing._

_And beyond even that, the eyes of those long dead, and longer still betrayed. Hatred and implacable, definite purpose, spoken of as the most ancient of evils. I am less than nothing in their eyes. I am graced with the slightest of their power, and they will permit me to continue with it._

_It must all falter and fall. Death comes to all, even the strongest. How should I judge otherwise?_

_I will bring it to them. I am to bring it to them. I will bring about the ending of all. I, who was to further the line, will end it instead._

_I am crying and there are no tears, retching with less than nothing in my belly, a belly which rots and is full of the corrosive acid of the living which even an hour before I had valued. I am_ writhing _in the pain of my own lightness and foolishness and empty desires which will amount to nothing._

_He is implacable. He is deliberate. No details are overlooked, everything is remade and repurposed._

_The whispers of darkness overtake what screams I would have left, what tears, and drag them from me laughing. The madness overtakes me, and I would that I could fall into a gentle darkness, but there is no such thing and this honest pain is all I can expect for hours and hours._

 

**Midnight: On Black Art and Pompacity**

     Nothing stirs in the night but you know it’s there. You know. No one will save you when you scream. This is my time.

     I rebirth that which has died, give it second life and the rites to do so are mine. What life have you formed from the forgotten? I didn’t think so.

     The Abyss and beyond spoke and I heard and obeyed the deeper calling. You understand none of what birthright means.

     What arrogance you judge me by. You don’t even know your true place. Neither did he.

 

     I gasp, dropped suddenly back into the physical. My body lies in a cold pool of my blood, burning with pain though it is yet tolerable. I roll to the side so the arm I have left, weak as it is, can move me. I rise only to the elbow. If I am to make any progress at all, I will have to be careful. I do not wish to fall so soon. It is a long drag across the floor, but I think I might repurpose one of the artifacts that are now scattered around the room. There are a couple which look somewhat human, from here.

     Pulling across the floor is difficult, between limbs and corpses and dark puddles. I rest in the pools, cheek resting in the stickiness. Some gets into my mouth when I breathe and it tastes of power and satiation. Shamelessly I drink it up, feeling the strength come back into my remaining limbs. The light of the leyline is darker than before. It shows me what I have to work with, to get myself back out again.

     First: something to use as a clamp. I need something like another hand to work on anything at all. Or at least something heavy. Something with friction. There.

     Second: a standard form. I will repurpose everything the first of the dead entombed here left behind. She was dead while alive, anyway. I doubt she’ll mind. There, the exoskeleton of an arm. It seems to have a shoulder joint built in. If I repurpose it from whatever it was, it will serve. There - one of the armor sets has a functional hip and knee socket waiting for repairs.

     Third: the arm will join naturally to me, it seems. I feel nothing with it, but when I try to move the clumsy fingers I can. I will remake them, metalwork and darkness. Beautiful and strong. Dextrous.

     Fourth: the thin wires coil unpredictably. There is pain, of course. I will gain calluses on the scar tissue, I suppose. Perhaps the nerves will decide to realign elsewhere. They are screaming confusion just now. I have accidentally triggered the function of this construction. It makes the process quicker. Now I can follow the essence channels of my own body. How much simpler. I can see how the joints ought to bend.

     Fifth: the leg, next. It is a more grotesque process, affixing the remade prosthetic into the bones and flesh where the joint was burst apart. Easier to fuse and seal and test for motion. It seems I have no sensation where the limb ends, but I will learn to use it all the same. It seems to bend when I want it to. This is progress.

     Sixth: I stand. I am remade, you see. Imperfect, and yet I stand and step, and now I will walk from my mausoleum and none of the treachery will matter.

     I stand.

     I breathe.

     I laugh.

 

**Dusk: On the Beginning of the End**

     It comes fast, the night, doesn’t it? Strength waning as it dies. I told you it would.

     I am here to end all things, as they must run their course. I have no ears for your denials.

     The pull of the beyond is inevitable. Let me take you through the pain to that side.

     Even he diminished and yielded.

     Your night will be no different.


End file.
